Thursday, January 15, 2009

Heroic Double Dip

Tuesday night I logged on, not entirely sure what would be going on. As far as I've been able to to tell Mal Katai doesn't have a set raid schedule. There are currently two full Naxx10 groups running. Both those groups fromed before I hit 80. There has been talk of a 3rd group forming, but so far I haven't heard anything about it.

Not long after I logged in I saw Araxe (BM Hunter) looking for a tank for some Heroic runs. Araxe was one of the guys I was close to during my initial time with Mal Katai, so I quickly offered my shield to his cause. The group was filled with old familiar friends, Celoria (Resto Druid) and Deeslock (Warlock). Then we rounded out the group with a new face in Marktradegy (Mage).

No one had a strong preference as to which Heroic to do, so we did Heroic Voilet Hold. Now I had attempted Heroic Violet Hold once before in a PuG, but we had not been successful. The group, as most PuGs tend to do, fell apart after the first wipe. That wipe had been caused by the tank (a very humble and handsome dwarf paladin, I might add). He failed completely at Orb kiting. Granted, it was the first time he'd tried it.

For this group, the first Boss was Ichoron, the Water elemental. We didn't have much trouble with him at all. When he split apart, Araxe grabbed a crystal that destroyed all the adds. He dropped some 'blue' tanking gloves that I didn't need since I had the ones from Naxx. So everyone just greeded.

Then we fought this Voidwalker looking boss named Zuramat. He summoned little black crystal that sprayed out AoE Shadowbolts. We were taking a ton of damage. Celoria did a wonderful job keeping everyone up, but I ended up dying. We were fortunate that Araxe, Dees and Mark were throwing down some serious DPS and he was burned down before we wiped.

Cel rezzed me and we got ready for the next boss.

Our final test was the blue dragon, Cyanigosa. Basically I engaged her, and everytime she would 'eat' us, I would need to taunt right away. I received a nice compliment from Araxe (BM Hunter) because each time I was able to taunt before Cyn killed his pet.

From Violet Hold, we decided to do Nexus. I was feeling really good about the group, and really enjoying the run so far.

I went into Occulus first, but eventually figured it out and got into Nexus. Araxe was helping me get around. I had run Nexus one time as I leveled up, but I was Retribution at the time.

We used CC through out the run. Araxe got to show me the new Hunter trick called Freezing Arrow, and Celoria hibernated the Dragonkin while Mark would sheep or pig or penguin the humaniods.

We took on the Horde boss first. This is an extra boss that you only get on Heroic. The biggest challenge with him was his Intimidating Shout. Sometimes, the 'flavor' of Paladin tanks lacking a fear break doesn't taste very good to me. We pulled him far enough back that we didn't have any problems.

He dropped a tanking cloak called Cloak of the Enemy. Here you can see a comparison between Cloak of the Enemy and the Cloak of Peaceful Resolutions from Wyrmrest Accord rep. Basically, it's a trade of 2 stamina for 1 defense. These cloaks seem too much alike, especially when one is a item level 187 and the other is item level 200. I'm sorry, but something is wrong here.

You are telling me I had 13 more item level points and all I got out of it was a lousy 2 stamina, and even that at the cost of 1 defense. Either the Cloak of the Enemy is underbudget or the Cloak of Peaceful Resolutions is overbudget. I can't tell you which.

We continued on to Grand Magus Telestra. She didn't prove to be much of a problem. She would spilt up and I would Consecrate to try to get aggro on all 4 of her adds. Then she would pull herself back together.

Once she was dealt with we made out way down to Anomalus. Here again, Consecrate was key to help pickup the adds he spawned, and we burned him down with little issue. He dropped a new pair of Retribution boots for me called Rift Striders. These will replace the Trollkickers I got from questing in Zul'Drak.

Next up, we headed to the Treants area. We got stuck between two patrols and the constantly spawning little guys. That lead to us overpulling and wiped. So we ran back into the instance and took the path from the front of the instance rather than the path from Anomalus and we were fine.

Ormorok himself was pretty easy. All I needed to do was watch for the little spikes on the ground and move away from them.

Last up was the dragon, Keristrasza. I had planned to jump tank her to avoid getting stuck to the ground and taking major damage. I really wanted to get the achievement for not letting my stack of Intense Cold get over 2. What I had failed to understand was that she would basically shackle me from time to time. I was too slow on my Hand of Freedom, so I let the debuff stack too high. We had a couple of close calls, but Cel is an amazing healer and kept us all from dying.

The group actually wanted to do another Heroic. With Cel healing, and the groups DPS, I felt like we could take on anything the game had to throw at us. I would have LOVED to have done another one, but sadly, I was out of time and had to log off.

This was the first all Mal Katai 5 man group I'd been in since I returned to Mal Katai, and I have to say it's about the most fun I've had in game in a long time. There was light banter over vent the entire night. I really missed nights like that. It's groups like this that give you that 'home' feeling in a guild. I know I won't be able to always run guild groups, and I'll still need to PuG, but I'll sure look forward to those times that I can.

3 comments:

Crofe
said...

I got the orb guy first time up in Heroic VH as well (actually, it was the second boss) and wiped because of failed orb kiting. Miraculously the semi-PuG stuck with me and we started over and finished the event.

Did you end up taking the Cloak of the Enemy? Every time that drops for me I wonder if I should pick it up or not. Just doesn't seem worth the hassle. (I think it also has 5 more armor than the Wyrmrest one). I was unaware of the iLvl difference.

The "shackle" that the dragon at the end of Nexus does can be removed with Cleanse, just FYI. I've got a cleanse macro set up for quick cleanses, but I don't have a Hand of Freedom one. Also Cleanse will take care of the breath weapon debuff as well. I use cleanse in my "rotation" when I'm tanking so the healer doesn't have to. . .even on other people sometimes.

The trick about the orb kiting is not to start kiting like your life depends on it (although it does :P).

This is how I do it:-Get on the first steps of the stairs to the left of where he spawns.-Wait until the second orb has passed the 'hole in the stairs' or he will cut off your kiting path.-Don't wait too long, or the first orb will catch up :)

This will allow your group to burn him down for about 30 seconds (rough guess), you will have to watch out for the first orb though